A New Year’s Eve Challenge

Do this before midnight…

Decide.

That’s it.

Decide that you are a writer.

(Decide: from the Latin deciderer- ‘to cut off’.)

When you decide to do something your brain stops worrying about “if” and starts working on “how”. And that’s how things get done.

Let’s cut off all the prevarication, the shilly -shallying, the ‘maybe I can wriggle out of the hard work by pretending I’m not really that bothered about being a writer’, the ‘maybe someone else will write the book my audience needs, and I’m ok with that’. Leave all that in the year that is ending.

Continue reading “A New Year’s Eve Challenge”

The Tiniest Thing You Can Do For Your Writing

How can you take advantage of the New Year energy without becoming overwhelmed? Read on…

Happy New Year!

If you set some writing goals for this year, why not take advantage of that New Year energy and figure out:

What’s the tiniest thing you can do, today, to support your image of yourself as the kind of person who take your writing seriously?

Could you:

  • Read a story you wrote last year and find a sentence you enjoyed?
  • Capture three story sparks today?
  • Write in your journal about why you love to write?
  • ​Read a story someone else wrote?
  • Write a sentence, a paragraph or a scene?
  • Put some time on your calendar to write, next week?

Pick something tiny and do it for yourself today, with joy.

Keep writing,

Julie

P. S. My Superstars group hosted a writing sprint at 8:30 this morning. (I slept through it. That was NOT the tiniest writing success I could manage today…),but it was a GREAT way to start a new year and a new day. We’ll be doing it again tomorrow. Join us?

You Can Do It!

I’m guest posting at Writer Unboxed today and it’s all about how to make writing Feel more Fun. Check it out and join in the discussion

A Message from Julie

I read a lot of blogs and articles, researching the best ideas from creative folks; gems that I can share with my beloved writers.

This holiday season, I’ve definitely seen a theme emerge in posts from writers, coaches, artists, and teachers from all over the English-speaking world:

Acceptance.

And I’m excited about it.

Continue reading “You Can Do It!”

How To Set Exciting Writing Goals for Next Year — And Actually Meet Them, This Time!

This time next year, you could be staring at a list of achievements that are directly related to the goals that matter to you…

Listen to the podcast episode that goes along with this post:

The Allure of the Fresh Start

I love the idea of a fresh start, don’t you?

It doesn’t matter when it happens (New Year, the first day of spring, the start of a new academic year), I’m always ready with my list of “this time it’ll be different” resolutions.

  • This time I’ll get my assignments done ahead of time!
  • This time I’ll write every day, even if I don’t feel inspired!
  • This time I’ll floss three times a day!

    And What Happens Next?

    You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?

    I’m excited to follow through on my plans for about three days.

    Then I start to force myself to stick to the new regime.

    Then I start to miss a day here or there…

    …and suddenly it’s June and I’m flipping through my journal and I find that massive, guilt-inducing list of Things I’m Going To Do Differently This Year, and my shoulders slump, and I spend the next three weeks in a slump, wondering why I can’t get anything done.

    Sound familiar?

Continue reading “How To Set Exciting Writing Goals for Next Year — And Actually Meet Them, This Time!”

[Writing Prompt] It’s Time For Holiday Stories

It’s Write On Wednesday Day! (That’s really clumsy. I’m going to have to never do that again!)

Thanksgiving dinner decor
Photo by Karin Dalziel


The Nov/Dec/Jan holiday season is fast approaching. I know you don’t want to think about it, but if you’re interested in putting out a short story for the holidays, this is actually kind of last minute.

Publications have long lead times for date-specific stories, so if your holiday stories aren’t already written, now’s the time. Magazines and online pubs LOVE themed stories (Christmas stories; New Year issues; Thanksgiving horror stories!).

Or perhaps you’d like to create a story for friends and family to say thanks for all their support (or: na-na-na-na-na-na-you-see-I-wasnt-lying-around-watching-daytime-TV-all-year).

The Prompt

Write a story tied to a Nov/Dec/Jan holiday

Tips

  • You can use this to flesh out characters from a longer work in progress.
  • You can include characters from your real life.
  • You can use this as a calling card/thank you note/Christmas letter if you send holiday greetings cards
  • Mine your own memories, but don’t feel you have to write memoir. Take an incident from one of your family holidays and recast it on a steampunk airship or a city made of living bone towers or at the Tudor court.
  • Don’t feel it has to be a narrative story. One of the delights of the short story form is that it can be much more than that. Consider writing a list of holiday gifts your character has to buy, complete with passive-aggressive commentary; or a series of increasingly frantic tweets from the Thanksgiving dinner table…
  • Create a compelling character and set them in a ridiculous situation, or a ridiculous character and put them in a banal situation.

Have fun with this. Amuse yourself. Remember, nobody ever has to see this story, so you can be as cruel or as kind as you like!

[Write on Wednesday] Seasonal Six Sentences

Last week I talked about the benefits of writing seasonal stories and yesterday I highlighted a seasonal story over at Six Sentences. Today I’m combining the two, for today’s prompt:

The Prompt

Write A January Story In Six Sentences

Tips

Your story should have something to do with “January”.
It might be set in the month, have something to do with the Roman god Janus (after whom the month was named), or feature a character named January.
Don’t forget that your experience of January is different from that of many others. (hint: even the weather is different in the other hemisphere.)